THE PRESIDENT: Thank you
all. Thanks. It's been my honor to come over to
thank everybody for their hard work. I know there's a lot of
folks here at the FBI who are working long hours. People are
away from their families more than they want. But my
presence here should assure you that I recognize the important
contribution you make, and that the FBI and the wonderful men and women
who work here are an incredibly important part of the army that is
going to win the war on terrorism.

You've got some pretty good generals here,
starting with General Ashcroft, who is doing a fine job as the Attorney
General of America. I told the country when I picked the man
that you don't have to worry where he stands and the values he brings
to the job. I'm proud of the service, and I appreciate so
very much, Larry, as well, coming up from Atlanta, Georgia to serve our
country.

As you know, I made an important pick to
head the agency. Picked a good, solid American. A
man who has been under fire before, and who doesn't flinch under fire
this time around, either. And that's Bob
Mueller. Thank you for your service. (Applause.)

First, I -- as I mentioned to many of your
colleagues, we're facing a different kind of war than our country is
used to; that, two weeks ago there was an act of war declared on
America. No one could have possibly dreamed that it would
come in the way it did. And it shocked our nation, of
course.

And we've had time to think about it here
in the country, and we're angry. But we're also clear --
we've got clear vision about what the country needs to
do. This is a nation that has come together to defend our
freedom and our way of life.

I see things this way: The
people who did this act on America, and who may be planning further
acts, are evil people. They don't represent an ideology,
they don't represent a legitimate political group of people. They're
flat evil. That's all they can think about, is
evil. And as a nation of good folks, we're going to hunt
them down, and we're going to find them, and we will bring them to
justice.

Ours is a nation that does not seek
revenge, but we do seek justice. And I don't care how long it takes to
rout out terrorism, we're going to do it. We will take the
time and effort and spend the resources necessary to not only find
these who -- these evildoers who did what they did to America on
September the 11th, this is a larger campaign against anybody who hates
freedom, anybody who can't stand what America and our allies and
friends stand for.

And so I'm here at the FBI to thank you
for your work. Most of your job is to help us win the war
here at home. Most of your job is to prevent something else
from happening. And I know that hundreds of FBI agents and
other employees of the Agency are working long, long hours to do
that. I was able to see the war rooms where information is
being collected and analyzed and dispersed.

I was able to see the consoles, where
people have been sitting at long hours, detailing every piece of
information that is being gathered across the country. I
know there are over 4,000 employees of the FBI working on not only
gathering evidence for the particular actions that took place on
September the 11th, but running down every scrap of information that is
being found all across our land, and analyzing the information, and
preparing our great nation to disrupt any action that may be being
planned.

There are some other things we can do in
the country, and our Congress needs to work with us. And I
believe -- I had breakfast this morning with Republican and Democrat
leaders, and I will tell you, the spirit on Capitol Hill is good for
America. It's a united spirit.

I want to thank the leaders from both
parties, and both Houses for their willingness to listen to anybody who
has got a good idea about how to fight terrorist activity in the
country. And I believe the Attorney General has taken some
good ideas to Capitol Hill, and I'd like to share some of them with
you.

First, what we've seen is these terrorists
are very sophisticated, and so are their
communications. They must -- their calls must be penetrated
when we feel there's a threat to America. We've got to know
what's on their mind. And so, therefore, we must give the
FBI the ability to track calls when they make calls from different
phones, for example.

Now, this is what we do for drug dealers
and members of organized crime, and it seems like to make sense to me,
if it's good enough for the FBI to use these techniques for facing down
those threats to America, that now that we're at war, we ought to give
the FBI the tools necessary to track down terrorists. And so
I hope Congress will listen to the wisdom of the proposals that the
Attorney General brought up, to give the tools necessary to our agents
in the field to find those who may think they want to disrupt America
again.

We're asking Congress for the authority to
hold suspected terrorists who are in the process of being deported,
until they're deported. That seems to make sense --
(laughter) -- that if a suspected terrorist is detained, and our nation
has decided to deport the person, then they ought to be held in custody
until the action actually takes place. We believe it's a
necessary tool to make America a safe place.

Now, this would of course be closely
supervised by an immigration judge. Now, the only
alternative is to let suspected terrorists loose in our
country. I don't think anybody wants to do
that. (Laughter.) I certainly hope
not. And we're asking for the authority to share information
between intelligence operations and law enforcement, so we can direct
the best of both in the critical effort. That, too, is a
reasonable request to make of Congress.

I want you to know that every one of the
proposals we've made on Capitol Hill, carried by the Attorney General,
has been carefully reviewed. They are measured requests, they are
responsible requests, they are constitutional requests. Ours
is a land that values the constitutional rights of every
citizen. And we will honor those rights, of course.

But we're at war, a war we're going to
win. And in order to win the war, we must make sure that the
law enforcement men and women have got the tools necessary, within the
Constitution, to defeat the enemy.

And there's going to be one other thing
that's required to defeat the enemy, and that's the will and
determination of the American people. I believe the
evildoers miscalculated when they struck America. They
thought we would shy away. They thought their threats could
hold this nation hostage. They must have felt like they
could diminish our soul. But quite the opposite has taken
place. They've strengthened the spirit of America. They
have united their country. They have awoken a mighty nation
that understands that freedom is under assault; a mighty nation that
will not rest until those who think they can take freedom away from any
citizen in the world are brought to justice.

They've got a problem on their
hands. We're going to find them. And if they're
hiding, we're going to smoke them out. And we'll bring them
to justice. And not only will we bring them to justice, we
will bring those who harbor them, who hide them, who feed them, who
encourage them, to justice.

America is a nation built upon freedom,
and the principles of freedom, the values of freedom. And
this is a nation that will not -- will not -- blink from the
fight. This is a nation that will stand strong for the great
values that have made us unique.

I'm proud of the work of the
FBI. I want to thank you all for your
dedication. Stay at it. The nation is counting on
you. You're making a great, great contribution for the
country.

May God bless you all and your families,
and may God continue to bless the United States of
America. (Applause.)